Based on the overwhelming and universal acceptance of the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (please see "Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings") I previously offered what I call aUniversal Declaration on Animal Sentience. I didn't offer any specific location for this declaration because with very few exceptions, people worldwide, including researchers and non-researchers alike, accept that other animals are sentient beings. The Universal Declaration on Animal Sentience can be a deep, personal, and inspirational journey that comes from our heart and also has a strong and rapidly growing evidence-based foundation.

The other essay called "Science, sentience, and animal welfare" by Robert Jones of the Department of Philosophy at California State University in Chico, is a detailed comprehensive review (please contact the author at rcjones@csuchico.edu). Professor Jones concludes, "... even the most progressive current welfare policies lag behind, are ignorant of, or arbitrarily disregard the science on sentience and cognition." I've also noted this is other many essays (please seeandand). Basic facts about sentience and empathy in birds and rodents for example, that have been available for a while, still have not been incorporated into the Federal Animal Welfare Act in the United States. However, they are very important in the growing field of compassionate conservation (see also).

The state of the animals 2013: Animal sentience is not science fiction

For those very few skeptics who remain uncertain of animal sentience these papers should convince you that detailed scientific data from numerous studies show that a wide-range of animals are sentient beings, and for those who know this to be the case, these essays provide wonderful resources to share widely.

It's time to recognize what we know about animal sentience and to use it on the animals' behalf. Animal sentience is a well-demonstrated fact, not science fiction.

But the skeptics are still out there and need to be identified and the underlying motives for their skepticism examined. It is my contention that these motives have less to do with scientific objectivity than with preserving the prerogative to utilize non-human animals without ethical limitations. It always helps to objectify your victims and to minimize their sufferings if you your aim is to avoid public scrutiny and criticism. How else to explain a recent paper dealing with pain perception (or more precisely, lack thereof) in fish in a fisheries journal authored by J.D. Rose and C.E. Wynn? The former notorious for claiming that fish can't experience pain because they don't have a cerebral cortex analogous to humans and, just by chance, an avid promoter of sport angling. And the latter a long-time skeptic of animal sentience (supposedly because they lack the facility of language) and helpful "expert" consultant to industries opposing new animal welfare regulations.

In one of the journals that published Helen Proctor's articles, she is compelled to affirm that "the author declares no conflict of interest". Is it impolitic to enquire whether Messrs. Rose and Wynn can say the same when they deride animal sentience, thereby facilitating the painful or lethal use of non-human animals while at the same time accepting the support of industries whose existence is based on just that?

Unfortunately, science does not convince the deniers, especially when they have easy access to media pushing a profit-motivated denialist point-of-view, and can take the easy way out, without thinking. If, however, you used 'skeptic' in its true sense, I would have thought skeptics were convinced long ago.

In a past life, I was in a rather heated discussion in which the other person said "I'll see it when I believe it!" That was, and is, the most honest answer I've ever heard regarding the difficulty of getting someone to change positions based on scientific evidence.

If a scientist repeatedly makes the claim that fish in general are physiologically incapable of perceiving pain while at the same time working off grants from the fishing industry and actively promoting sport fishing, I think the scientific community should accord him about as much credibility as they do the petroleum engineer who claims that anthropogenic climate change has nothing to do with fossil fuels or the tobacco company research chemist who maintains that there is insufficient evidence to say conclusively that smoking causes cancer. To believe otherwise at some point goes beyond simple naiveté into the realms of willful disregard of the obvious.

“. . . I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I ca’n’t belive that!”said Alice.
“Ca’n’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one ca’n’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always dd it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. . . “

There are a LOT of people like the White Queen out there! And in a country like the US where it is permissible to teach religious theories in the guise of science, there are certainly LOTS of people with lots of practice.

I think its similar to climate change there are too many vested interests for people to be taught to be objective. The "tree hugging hippies" who actually know the definiton of ecology have been slandered no end in the tabloid press, if not directly then by association. I think to a degree to be ecologically ethical is to be subversive, and people have to realise this.